Developer Diaries

Close Combat: First to Fight - Vol #3

In our first two developer diaries, we discussed the features of Close Combat: First to Fight that make it realistic. In this diary, we discuss specifically how the Marine Corps has participated in making First to Fight, as well as some of the changes active-duty Marines just back from combat in Iraq asked us to make in the game to make it more realistic.

Marine Participation

We interact with the Marine Corps on many levels. Marines involved at a very deep level in the project range from privates to colonels. Most of them are stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, but we've also had a lot of involvement from Marines stationed at Twenty-Nine Palms (California), Camp Lejeune, (North Carolina), and Marine Corps Headquarters at Quantico (Virginia).

We work with the Marines in a multi-step process.

First, the Marine Corps assigned us "Subject Matter Experts" at the beginning of the project. These Marines provide us with expertise, and they include both active-duty Marines as well as recently retired, combat-experienced Marines. They give us thousands (and thousands) of pages of Marine warfighting doctrine, get us detailed photographs of equipment and people, arrange for visits to Marine Corps bases, connect us with other Marines who have specialized knowledge, and answer questions that pop up during development. Our lead Subject Matter Expert for First to Fight is a retired gunnery sergeant -- and yes, he's in a lot better physical shape than you are, even though he's retired.

Second, for the past 18 months the Marines have repeatedly sent groups of active-duty Marines, just back from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, to our offices to sit down side-by-side with our engineers, artists, and designers. These Marines spend many days during each trip with our team to put the exact tactics they used during combat into First to Fight. They personally demonstrate these tactics to us as four-man teams; they painstakingly detail their formations and fire-sector coverage on whiteboards; they answer hundreds of very specific questions (it's amazing how many "what-if" scenarios develop as you get into the nitty-gritty detail of fire-sector coverage in different kinds of situations and environments); they listen to sound samples of everything from weapons fire to Middle-Eastern city noises until we get them right; they write down the expressions and words they use during combat; and they convey to us specific stories of their combat experiences while they were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.